In this thread, we discuss meditation and related topics.
Those “related” topics might include: enlightement, presence, spirituality, consciousness, Buddhism, any related books, tools and resources, etc.
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On my reading list in the last six months. These books are by modern two non-dualist teachers, both of whom have YouTube videos and run retreats.
Eckhart Tolle channel
Adyashanti channel
The first two are, in essence, how-to guides for enlightenment.
The Power of Now … insta-classic by Eckhart Tolle, “A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”
The Way of Liberation … “A Practical Guide to Siritual Enlightenment” by Adyashanti.
The End of Your World … also by Adyashanti, with discussion of topics mostly pertaining to folks who have had some kind of awakening experience
I was introduced to meditation initially through a yoga class, basically with the message that it’s good to have a daily meditation practice–which mostly means at home, mostly alone. But pre-pandemic I found a local meditation center (upstate NY, but there are similar groups all over) and began attending group meditations.
Maybe it was the place, maybe the people, maybe a specific person–I don’t know. But these group meditations were very powerful. Has anyone else experienced a difference between meditating alone and with other people?
When I meditate, I sort of tune in to a pitch I hear in my head. It is a fairly high pitch, though it varties some, and I have to really sit and wait a moment to find it sometimes. But meditating with this group, at times it would be much more apparent, present. In once instance, the 40 minutes we sat, the time simply vanished and it was like no time at all passed.
The other day I went for a walk in the woods. It turned into a walking meditation.
I found myself in this very aware, conscious state. The thoughts in my head were fast, but I was also able to experience them “over there” while my attention was “out there” with the world. Two interesting realizations …
The first: Upon realizing I was in this very aware state, I had the thought that I could stay in it forever. And Immediately, I felt this wave of fear come up in my chest. It was very pronounced, very obvious, this feeling of fear.
Second: The awareness was greater, the more closely I looked at things. A pine cone floating in a puddle, moss on a tree, these things were vibrant and alive and I could really see them. But when I looked out at the woods, the view flattened into concepts and I saw less.
I am a daily practitioner and avid reader. I focus solely on the secular side while you seem interested in the metaphysical. That’s the cool thing though. Same basic effect.
I havnt had much luck with walking meditation. I’m too easily distracted.
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I also like meditation, the breathing exercises are very effective for me. I find it helps mentally of course, but also breath practice helps me with weight lifting and other exercises as well.
What’s the difference between a secular and metaphysical approach to meditation?
Until recently, I self-described as an atheist. Then I was filling out a form and checked Buddhist. … I don’t consider myself religous. But the thing is, all the stuff I read about the ego and consciousness just makes sense.
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The secular approach focusses on the benefits within the bounds of biology, psychology and science. The metaphysical approach includes ideas of spirit and soul. Religious notions.
Absolutely. It’s like the difference between watching sports alone and watching with a crowd of fans.
Buddhism is sort of unique in comprising a set of practices (meditation) and a philosophy which are separable from the religion, so you don’t have to be a Buddhist to subscribe to Buddhist ideas. I don’t know about you but I don’t think I’m going to attain rainbow body if I continue to meditate long enough:
The ultimate fruition of the thodgal practices is a body of pure light, called a rainbow body. If the four visions of thodgal are not completed before death, then during death, from the point of view of an external observer, the dying person starts to shrink until he or she disappears. Usually fingernails, toenails and hair are left behind (see e.g. Togden Ugyen Tendzin, Ayu Khandro, Changchub Dorje). The attainment of the rainbow body is typically accompanied by the appearance of lights and rainbows.
Exceptional practitioners are held to realize a higher type of rainbow body without dying. Having completed the four visions before death, the individual focuses on the lights that surround the fingers. His or her physical body self-liberates into a nonmaterial body of light with the ability to exist and abide wherever and whenever as pointed by one’s compassion.
This is all nonsense and means I’m never going to call myself a Buddhist even if I think that Buddhist ideas on the human condition are largely correct. I don’t become a Christian just because I think the ideas of charity and forgiveness have merit.
I think it’s a bad idea to constrain your practice in this way, though. Meditation is an experiential practice. It’s like saying you’re only going to listen to or play music that can be scientifically proven to be beneficial. You’re better off exploring the field and drawing your own conclusions about what is helpful.
There’s a general problem with the scientific study of meditation, which is that it’s much easier to study some types than others. Because mindfulness meditation can be performed by anyone and doesn’t require long practice to gain an aptitude, the quantity of research on mindfulness in particular is well out of proportion to its place in the tradition.
While I’m on the subject of science though, this might interest you guys. This was a doctoral thesis done by a neurology Ph.D. here in Adelaide in collaboration with the meditation centre I attend. The second and third names given as paper authors are the two senior teachers at the centre.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167876016307152?via%3Dihub
Two non-meditative and five meditative states were used: resting baseline, mind-wandering, absorptions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (corresponding to four levels of absorption and an absorption with a different object of focus, otherwise equivalent to level 4; these five meditative states produce repeatable, distinctly different experiences for experienced meditators).
These states are what are called in the tradition the rūpa jhānas.
We observed decreases of central scalp beta (13–25 Hz), and central low gamma (25–48 Hz) power in meditators during deeper absorptions. In contrast, we identified increases in frontal midline and temporo-parietal theta power in meditators, again, during deeper absorptions.
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Interesting. I’ve read a little bit of the science.
I don’t constrain myself in the sense that I wouldn’t try different practice types, even if they derived from religious traditions. Really it all derived from religious tradition. I just don’t pay any attention to metaphysical or supernatural claims or read much from those who focus on this aspect. There is a lot of both mixed into mediation literature which I think can confuse new practitioners. The language can get muddled when real biological benefits are mixed up with supposed supernatural ones.
Yeah a lot of it just has to be thought about as a way of organising and communicating about subtle inner experiences. For example the mention of chakras will reliably cause most rational people to roll their eyes, but all they are describing is focal points of certain inner experience. It’s why it doesn’t matter that in some traditions there are four major ones and in others there are seven, because it’s just different systems of organising experience. For example in English we have a set of similar negative emotions to which we give names like anger, disgust, frustration, contempt and so on. In other cultures or languages things might be delineated slightly differently, but they’re an effort to describe the same set of inner experiences. Those inner experiences are real, problems arise when you start to think that our systems of describing them (be that emotions or chakras) have any independent reality.
It’s not so different to science in that all we’re ever doing is modelling things as closely as we can. Do quarks “really exist”? The question doesn’t mean anything. Reality really exists, our models of it are as close an approximation as we have, asking whether the models are real is confusing ontology with epistemology.
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Totally agree with this assessment. I’ve read a decent amount of Buddhist literature and it often contains supernatural claims but they are easy to read as exactly what you said, simple heuristics to understand human experience.
Well, arguably all religion/spiritual stuff should be read this way and is sensible in this framework.
Religion frequently strays into the realm of the metaphysical or physical. That Jesus came back from the dead or that if you meditate hard enough you will dissolve into rainbow light are not claims about inner human experience or about the best way to live your life.
The difference between Buddhism and Christianity is that if one excises the metaphysical from Christianity, one is left with nothing but some generic pablum about the Golden Rule and forgiveness (all laudable etc but not exactly unique insights), whereas if one excises the metaphysical from Buddhism, one is left with a rich body of practices and philosophies not found elsewhere.
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Very well said. It why Buddhist texts are really the only religious texts worth reading for any kind of guidance.
I’m 7+ years sober in AA. Meditation is a big part of my sobriety, I do it every morning. Generally I focus on my breath and/or do body scans. Sometimes there’s more of an effort toward seeking conscious contact with a higher power.
I also run 3-5 miles every morning before sunup, which to me is very meditative. I can start my run with my mind racing (even after meditating) but invariably by the end of my run I have calmed down and am focusing solely on my breath and my body. On the rare-ish days I don’t run I have a much harder time staying present.
If I’m really struggling with anger and resentment I’ll sometimes do lovingkindness meditations. Whether in that setting or less formally, it is incredible how helpful it is for me to wish for good things to come to someone toward whom I’m angry or resentful. It even works when somebody cuts me off in traffic. Just writing this reminds me I don’t do it enough.
The book that got me really started meditating is Real Happiness by Sharon Salzeberg: Real Happiness - Sharon Salzberg
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For the last couple of days, I can feel a ball of fear in my chest. At first it would come and go–like an energetic contraction and drop, just underneath my sternum. But I’ve been focusing on it, almost coaxing it to stay so I can look at it.
Ok, so now I can feel it pretty constantly. Now what?
I posted about this in the mental health thread some: I can see some ideas associated with the fear, but … from a meditation standpoint, questioning those ideas doesn’t seem right.
Most of the meditation I do focuses around getting distance from your thoughts–observing them as creations of the mind, not identifying with the thoughts. How do you guys approach something like this? Is there a practice to direct a healing energy towards the fear?
Disclaimer: IANAL (Lama, not Lawyer).
Two suggestions:
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Try to further familiarise yourself with it, for example by drawing it, or writing about exactly how it feels.
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Breathe into your belly - that is, breathe in and try to visualise/feel the breath going all the way into around the center of your belly. Then breathe out slowly and try to develop a feeling of the stress leaving your body, both through the breath, but also just out through all the edges of your body. On the in-breath into the belly, you can try to develop a feeling of groundedness and by extension security. You are held by the chair (or bed, or ground, or whatever you’re on). Draw conscious attention to the safety and security of your body.
I’ve asked my ex as well, she has an aptitude for meditation and experience with anxiety. She’s going to respond later.
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I practice Transcendental meditation. you are supposed to do two twenty minute sessions a day. I do one when I first wake up, and one at lunchtime
I’ve never actually done any other form of meditation so I can’t speak to that, but TM has had a huge beneficial effect on my mental well-being, calmness and ability to focus.
I went to a course that was 4 sessions over 4 days where you learn the technique, and get taught the theory and history behind it, including a ceremony which I will confess had my cynical antennae vibrating, but I could feel the benefit straight off the bat.
The way they described the difference between TM and traditional meditation which I liked was that if you imagine thoughts as the waves on a sea in other meditation techniques you are either trying to calm down the waves so the sea is flat, or you just allow your mind to follow the waves wherever they may take you. In TM you aren’t on the sea you are going to the bottom of he sea bed where there aren’t any waves.
Anyway’ good enough for David Lynch and Jerry Seinfeld then it’s good enough for me
Mantra meditation is a sound practice. I do think TM dresses it up with unnecessary ornamentation which is a form of marketing, basically. I also think sticking to just mantra meditation is limiting. One of the teachers at the place I go came to meditation through TM and later expanded his repertoire. I’d say give some other things a go but I don’t want to sound negative, the TM practice is fundamentally good so if that works well for you, awesome.